Ripley, Tennesse

Natalie has been my friend since freshman year of college.  She started working at Chaney's Pharmacy about a month before me and that first year of work our paths didn't cross much at all, but by that summer we would leave on small shopping trips and any other escape from Chaney's we would make.  My favorite memories of us working at Chaney's together were once a month Elizabeth Arden inventory Sundays.  Somehow after six months of working at Chaney's I became the make up girl and it fell my duty to make sure we always had what our Elizabeth Arden customers needed.  On inventory Sundays Natalie and I would sit down behind the make up counter with snacks and a notebook and begin the task of getting it all together.  I am sure now that we laughed and snacked more than we actually worked, but it became tradition and something we could look forward to.  Natalie, two years older than me was from Ripley, Tennessee and like most small town girls was proud of the Ripley Tigers and like me loved to tell about people from home and stories from high school.

The years have brought us pretty far from Sunday afternoon socials behind the make up counter.  We later roomed together and each of us moved from weekend work to better hours and more responsibility, but the stories shared have cemented our friendship.  I will never eat a Skor bar with a Diet Coke that I don't think of those times.

This past weekend I made my first trip to Ripley, Tennessee and I put faces with names and loved EVERY minute of it.  It was nothing for Natalie to run home in college and make the three hour trip like it was a trip to the grocery store. Saturday we celebrated Natalie's engagement to Bo at the Ripley Country Club.

As Joanne, Lauren and I pulled up I began looking in the parking lot for familiar faces.  As we were introduced I scanned the crowd for people I recognized from old pictures but most importantly we celebrated our friends.

 Natalie's sweet mom, who I call Mary Jill, is so precious.  

 Some of the girls Natalie went to high school with.

 Mr. Billy Chipman, I have met his son and he was just as much a cut up as Mr. Billy was.  It was funny as he was explaining that Natalie grew up right next to them, I could finish his sentence about how they spent every major holiday together as neighbors.

 Natalie's sister, Catherine is engaged to Alex, and they are so PRECIOUS together.

 And here is the sweet groom.  

When I say that Natalie and I have been friends through several boyfriends through the years, know that I can recount many midnight conversations, rationalizations, and pizza therapy sessions.  Natalie was the friend that let me know we would stop being friends if I continued to like one particular college guy, and I think because I knew she was serious and I valued her friendship that threat is what brought me back to sanity and eventually on the road to meeting Cullen.  Luckily I never had to threaten Natalie she made a great choice when she chose Bo.  The Ripley girl has always told me to be good to Cullen because I'll never find anyone other than him that would put up with me, well, after getting to know Bo a bit better, I told her- she better keep him, because she and I are in the same boat.